Hot Tips: The composition and exposure of fire.

That golden moment when the flame is about to go out.  

So I think fire photography ranges from "Awesome!" to "Excellent."  The former is a photograph that shows a whole lot of fire, and it's eye-catching because it looks like someone is setting the entire world alight.  The latter is a well-composed portrait that happens to have a subject who is spinning fire.  In order to do this, I try to keep several things in mind.

1.  Fire is eye-catching in a photograph.  However, a human face is a focal point.  The fire must not obscure the face.  If it does, as a portrait, the photo is meaningless.

Awesome!  Notice you can't see the subject's face.  This does not work as a portrait.  

Despite the flames, the subject's eye is really the focal point of this image.  

2.  Fire is bright.  It is most beautiful if it does not blow out the image sensor.  The images that are dark but show detail and texture in the fire tend to be more aesthetically pleasing.  A lot of people who take these types of pictures love to have long trails that really show nothing but fire, and the fire just looks like a yellow streak.  I prefer to limit it extensively.  To this end, a subject spinning with smaller poi produces a better image than larger fire-spinning apparatus.  And the best time to shoot is the last few seconds, when the flame is dying out.  A shutter speed of .3-1.3 seconds is better than 2+ second.  And sometimes cropping within the trail of the flame produces a curious effect that makes it seem as if there is even more fire.  As part of a rule of composition, a pattern that extends beyond the frame seems larger, perhaps endless, than one that has space around it.

Again, no face.  

Peek-a-boo!  This image is more eye-catching.  

3.  Drag the shutter.  Normally, a longer exposure time created a brighter image, but when the scene is very dark, exposure time is meaningless.  So you use a flash.  Now, a flash only fires for 1/200 sec.  This means that whether you have a long or short exposure time, the light on the subject will be the same, because the light is only present for 1/200 sec.  This is useful in wedding photography, because you can use a long exposure to brighten the background, and a flash to freeze the action and light the foreground.  With fire photography, you don't really need a background, but you want a longer exposure to capture a long trail from the flame.  The flash freeze the subject.  The tricky part is that the fire will also light up the subject, so you get some orange ghosting.  A smaller aperture can control this to some extent, but it also necessitates a brighter flash.

This image has lots of fire, but all the empty space diminishes it.  

By cropping the edges of the flame, the fire really controls the image.